A Sense of Accomplishment

Have you ever done something you were really proud of? I was a member of the University Choir all four years of college. I majored in English, so you know I was not required to be a member of this group. I earned one credit hour each semester and the easy "A" was not a big boost to my GPA. However, I got loads of satisfaction out of being in this class. The harder the music, the better I liked it. There was something special about practicing and perfecting a choral piece day by day. It was hard work. Each semester we would present a concert at the end of the year. At the end of the concert, I think everyone involved would say they felt a degree of pride and joy at having been a part of the whole thing. It was an accomplishment.

One night last week I happened to come across part of an old Porky Pig cartoon on Boomerang. In this cartoon Uncle Sam was explaining American History to Porky. At the point I began watching, Paul Revere was making his famous ride. The cartoon went on to depict the Revolutionary War, the ratification of the Constitution, and the Emancipation of the Slaves. It was very interesting and obviously from a time when cartoons were made not just for the entertainment of children.

The cartoon got me thinking about how our country came to be what it is and has been. We started out with some very remarkable people making some very important decisions. I am amazed by the organization and detail that went into framing our goverment. Our forefathers worked very hard to make our nation something to be proud of and it was this pride in our nation that caused it to grow from a group of renegade rebels to a nation envied around the globe. Our government, our United States is an accomplishment.

But something is happening to the pride of this accomplishment. We are no longer revered as the great nation we used to be. Other countries now look to us in hatred rather than out of admiration. Americans no longer believe that America is the best place in the world to be. Oh, I know it's not politically correct for us to say that America is better than any other place in the world. But there was a time when that was a perfectly natural thing for any American to say and at that time, it was.

Why was it? Because we believed it was. We had pride. We had a sense of accomplishment. What has happened to that pride? I believe it started to fade when Americans began looking to the hand-out.

I work every day at a church. On a weekly basis an average of three people come into my office asking for help. It's always a good story and usually, I try to help however I can within the guidelines I have been given by the church benevolence committee. I'm always depressed a little about this aspect of my job. First of all because I see a lot of people asking for help that don't really need it. Secondly, because the ones that really do need help don't get near enough. That is my opinion of welfare in this country. I believe that public assistance robs people of the initiative to take care of themselves. I believe that robs them of pride in themselves and of any sense of accomplishment they might have.

Too many Americans anymore believe that there is some hand-out coming there way. There is something they are entitled to that they have not yet received. Whether it's the Publisher's Clearing House Prize or their monthly check--there are far too many people now who believe that they should get something for free.

Do you think that this is what the framers of our government had in mind? I don't. I think that our forefathers believed that the people of our nation should know the value of hard work and pride of accomplishing great things.

After all they did seek to ". . . establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessing of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity . . . " I believe that these words mean that our forefathers wanted this nation to know peace, safety, and the freedom to pursue our own sense of accomplishment. What do they mean to you?